ARGs in Education

I know I haven’t said much about the game, but rest assured I am still playing it. Initial thoughts below:

• Games are of two different type – investigative (go look around the web bring back the info) or more ‘practical’/arcade (guide the ball to the hole via obstacles)
• It’s designed a bit like the film SAW, so it is sufficiently creepy
• The in-game emails work differently to Jamie Kane. They offer further information to the games and give you hints and tips. They are from other investigators working on the case. In Jamie Kane, they were chiefly there to tell you to resume playing. As IM comes on a CD, there would be no need for those types of email…Both types of communication have different functions, but each work suitably well. If I was doing an ARG for younger children, I would keep circumstantial information to a minimum
• As Neil raised in the comments, the issue with CDs is not who holds the physical CD, but how many licenses there are…I’m thinking just put it on the web for free, altruism at its best. Users don’t expect to pay for things these days.
• The in-game sites are a little basic (could be down to the age of the game [4 years]) so when you access one, you know you are in the right place. They all share very similar conventions – e.g. a drop down box on the left to choose language - I will provide screengrabs
• As the game is quite old, there are a number of walkthroughs on the Internet, so if you are searching for a clue, the walkthrough will tend to be at the very top of your search results. Annoying, but something to consider….maybe there does need to be a shelf life on ARGs…otherwise the playability is compromised quite easily

This week is My Week Off, where I was planning on playing Cathy’s Book and In Memoriam. Cathy’s Book, I did within an few hours of receiving it and In Memoriam was broken – I installed it, but I couldn’t receive any emails from the game – I couldn’t even register my email address. Was peeved, yes.

However this is now changed thanks to an email to tech support, who responded within 10 mins!  The game is now working and I’m good to go. Yesterday, I finally managed to rig up my wireless router sans instructions and installation cd, all thanks to Tech Support.

Thanks TS. You rock.

OK, so that was suitably lame, but it had to be said.